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Today I read an article about the darknet, the seedy underbelly of the internet. The darknet is illegal for many reasons. A vendor promises that those seeking U.S. citizenship can purchase a package for $1,500, to include a fake U.S. passport, drivers license, birth certificate, and Social Security number that would all be delivered by free express shipping. That is just crazy. All you have to do is give your info and you could have a free ticket into the U.S.! Other vendors promise to give you others' credit card info! That's even worse. You could use people's money without them even knowing it was you. I think this is not worth it, even if you don't account for the ethical reasons. You could get caught, and it's dishonest and will make you feel guilty inside. I think the darknet is just a collection of hackers and criminals that collaborated to make a secret black market.

'A thruster stick is a complex bot that uses thrusters, aerofoils and/or helium to fly.' The Robocraft Wiki Yesterday I made a thruster stick, a bot that is renowned for being hard to fly. The bot itself is not very complex, it is just a stick of armor with a lot of engines on it. The armor is arranged in a 3x2x18 prism, with a few bulges where you have a lot of important stuff, for example the pilot seat. There are thrusters arranged on pretty much every face of the bot, making it incredibly hard to destroy. Also, there are electroplates which help with staying alive. The complex part about it is that it is very hard to fly. Each tiny press of the keys can send you skyrocketing in any direction. So you have to be very focused to make sure you don't crash and die. In addition to that, if you keep going in circles, you will also die, as people will hit you and you will die. But if you fly and build it right, the thruster stick is a very powerful robot that can wreak dev

Today I read an article about the new Apple MacBook. This computer is sleek, and very light. Weighing in at around 2 pounds, it is clearly a very light computer. The charger only weighs 0.2 pounds, so this computer is very portable. It is also very thin, only 0.5 inches at its thickest. The screen is ultra-high resolution, and it has a great trackpad. I don't like trackpads, so that won't really help if I were comparing this computer to a different computer. However, the lightweight part sounds good, because if I use a computer for school I'm going to move it around a lot. There are some negatives, though. This computer is slower than other MacBooks, and most other computers on the market for that matter. In addition to being slower, it has a shorter battery life, about 2/3 of other computers. Also, it only has one USB Type-C port, so it is not compatible with a lot of devices. Even if you do have a few compatible devices, you can only use on at a time. I think that makes

Today I read an article about Amazon suing websites for selling fake reviews. These websites sell review packages, where they give people good reviews for a certain product on Amazon for money. Amazon sued these companies on the pretense that they are damaging the company's credibility. It also said that a lot of these websites try to cover their tracks by making fake shipments, trying to fool Amazon's anti-fake review programs. I think these websites should be sued, as they do not perform any legit business. After all, most of the time, they probably don't know what product they're writing about. The review would probably always be something like: This is the best product I have ever used! I would definitely recommend this excellent product. These reviews could apply to anything! I think that fake reviewers should be sued and outlawed.

Today I participated in a garage sale. One of our neighbors was selling their home, and they are having a garage sale to get rid of some of their furniture. We piggybacked on their garage sale and so we're having our own garage sale to sell some of the toys and things that nobody plays with or uses anymore. For example, we're selling old books and baby toys. We're also selling two baby cribs. I was out helping people for around an hour; I earned $7. The $2 was from a person who bought a stuffed animal, and The $5 was from a person who bought the fire truck set and three books. I think the people who give the best business are probably the ones with little kids. The kids put some pressure on the parents, walking around and picking up things. The parents feel that they have to buy something, and that helps our business a lot! I had fun helping people choose what to buy today at our garage sale!

Have you ever wondered why people think some babies are cute and some aren't? Have you ever wondered what defines a baby's 'cute' rating? Today I read an article that talks about this subject. Mammalian babies all look the same: short snouts, high foreheads, round faces, big eyes. And we love it. The more a particular baby’s features accentuate those traits, the cuter we rate the face. People, including children, prefer pictures of babies over those of adults, and they prefer cute babies over un-cute ones. Studies that image your brain show that pictures that are 'cute' make you release more dopamine when you look at them, making you feel good. Another reason we think some babies are cute and some aren't is that baby features, it is thought, evolved to “release” caregiving behavior in adults—an adaptation that is no news to parents. Researchers have found that pictures of babies make their viewers more precise and careful in fine motor tasks, and ma

Today I started reading about Zero in the book Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea . The part of the book I read was about how ancient people were scared of zero. One of the main points it talked about was dividing by 0. A fundamental rule of ancient mathematics was that x/y*y=x. 0 ruined this equation. x/0*0 should be x, right? Wrong. This sparked a paradox in the ancient world. They calculated x/0*0, and it was 0, yet their fundamental rule said it would be x. An example of this is the proof that Winston Churchill is a carrot. Behold: Mathmatical Proof that Winston Churchill is a Carrot Don't believe me? Take a look at this: a = 1 b = 1 b^2 = ab (eq. 1) Since a equals itself, it is obvious that  a^2 = a^2 (eq. 2) Subtract equation 1 from equation 2. This yields a^2 – b^2 = a^2 – ab (eq. 3) We can factor both sides of the equation; a^2 – ab equals a(a – b). Likewise, a^2 – b^2 equals (a + b)(a – b). Substituting into equation 3 we get (a + b)(a – b) = a(a – b) (eq. 4) So f

Today I read a passage in Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale , which was about how salesmen are very important in any economy. One reason that salespeople are important is that lots of people benefit. When a salesman sells something, for example a tractor, he/she has to use pen and paper to negotiate a contract. In addition, the factory and company that makes tractors benefits because they get business. To create tractors, they need to buy natural resources and sign contracts with other companies that make the parts that they can't make. I think of it this way: Companies make the products, and salespeople sell the products. If there were no salespeople, then nobody would really buy some things because they wouldn't realize the benefits. An example of this was Cuba. When there were salespeople, as when Fidel Castro first took over, the country was wealthy and prosperous; nothing was rationed. Most importantly, people were happy. You could buy pretty much anything and

Today I read an article about fully autonomous missiles. These missiles are smart, and no longer require people to help guide them. They can avoid radar signals and dodge enemy countermeasures, making them invisible and invincible. These missiles could be the future of warfare, being able to obliterate whole warships in a blast. This will make wars a lot more violent. Countries across oceans could bomb each others' cities, killing millions in a few blasts. War could become as easy as flipping a switch. I think this is scary because if terrorists got a hold on these weapons, they could easily wreak havoc all over the place. The could completely destroy a city like New York, which would devastate the world. These missiles have a range from 230-580 miles, depending on how much hardware they are carrying. They can be set to change course and targets manually, or they can do it themselves. They also do not emit any signals, and with a design that makes them hard to see with radar. Whe

四月七号二零一五年，孙悟空还在睡大懒觉呢。今天有一个大仪式，万事俱备，只欠孙悟空这个东风了。可没想到，二郎神腾云驾雾的飞过来了，一手把孙悟空抬走了！二郎神飞回到他的洞里，把孙悟空摔在地上，绑了起来。二郎神出去吃早饭了，跑到最近的麦当劳。他买了一个二十七块钱的麦辣鸡翅套餐。他给了服务员一百块钱，然后服务员还了他七十三块钱。孙悟空在洞里醒过来，发现被绑起来，很不高兴。它用新技术变成了一个眉清目秀美女，等着二郎神回来。二郎神吃得很香呢，吃了好几个套餐。他把钱都花光了后回家了。他根本就看不出来梅女士孙悟空。他以为孙悟空逃跑了，把一个美女扔在洞里，觉得孙悟空很不有礼貌。但是他一看到美女就陶醉了，就坐在那儿呆呆地看着。美女叫他把绳子拿下来，二郎神就按照她说得干了。突然，美女变回了原形，把二郎神打得落花流水。孙悟空把二郎神绑了起来，然后开始讽刺他。孙悟空在他的脸前遥遥屁股，说他本事不大，实在是太笨了。过了一会儿，孙悟空觉得没意思了，就走了。二郎神向他叫：“把我放了！”但孙悟空根本就没有听见，因为他已经回到花果山参加仪式了。

Recently I read an article about Xiaomi's new power strip. The article said that Xiaomi was trying to make everything in our homes Mi-made, including scales and power strips. It also talked about how simplistic and detailed their products are. According to the article, Xiaomi wants to take over users' entire home, where everything in the house is Mi-made. Anyone who has followed the rise in Xiaomi smartphones recently will understand their methods. Xiaomi pairs fast, high-end components and cool designs with bargain prices, so that they don't earn as much money, but they certainly gain a lot of users. I think this is a better way to go than making products really expensive, because then more people will be willing to use your products, and it will probably balance out the higher prices other companies offer. Also, you can raise the prices in the future and earn a lot of money, as you will have a larger user base. The article also said that the founder of the company waxed

Today I visited the Volunteer Park and Conservatory. First we visited the Conservatory. I saw some weird plants, including several types of pitcher plants. When we turned them upside down, they actually leaked water! Some of them had huge amounts of water in them while others had a tiny bit. I also saw an interesting plant with triangular leaves. The stem was thing, black, and strong. The leaves, however, were soft and bent really easily, like Kleenex. After that we played in the park. There were a few huge trees that were really fun to climb. They had huge, smooth branches and roots that snaked along the ground. I have never seen any trees like that - they grow and look like pine trees, but are all attached to a central tree by roots that are one to two feet thick and are above ground. I had a great time at the park today, and I saw some new and interesting plants!

Today I watched six different April Fools tech videos. My two favorite videos were the PlayStation Flow video and the Razer Project McFly video. The Razer Project McFly video is about a mouse that can hover. It has three hover drivers which combine water vapor with parametric excitation of torsional omega frequency Alfven waves to achieve levitation. Even though I have no idea what that means, I looked at the trailer, and it looks crazy. It hovers above the desk and can fly around. Then we have the PlayStation Flow. The thing looks like swimming gear, except it sends your movements to the PS4, and makes the character in the game swim. The game streams live footage of the game to the goggles. The ad said that 'the next time you get to a swimming scene in your game, you can just pause and go to a nearby pool.' This year, there are so many new technologies. I can't wait to see what will happen next year! http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/04/01/the-6-best-april-fools-tech-vi